Acoustic vibrations method to detect diseases and predict shelf life and maturity of commodities

Abstract

A non-destructive method to detect the onset of diseases in organic cells and predict shelf life and maturity of commodities including fruits, vegetables, seeds, meat, fish, freezer dried products, beverages and pharmaceutical drugs is presented here. The system includes a bone conduction speaker, piezoelectric sensor-based microphone, and an audio processor (including shelf-life matrix, diseases matrix, defect matrix and maturity matrix specific to each perishable commodity) and a display system, which automatically determines ready for harvest condition, diseases (if any), maturity and the remaining shelf life of the perishable commodity.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A Shelf life Prediction System including a bone conductor based speaker having a sound frequency range of at least 1 hz and at most 20K hz; A piezo electric sensor based microphone having a sound frequency range of at least 1 hz and at most 20K hz, for predicting the remaining shelf life of fruits and vegetables, the steps comprising:
 Generating an acoustic vibration profile of said fruit/vegetable; Resizing and cropping the audio to the area of interest; comparing the data with the combination of acoustic vibrations based shelf life, defect and maturity matrices; finding the match between the acoustic vibration space and the acoustic vibration space from the shelf life, defect and matrices, predicting the remaining shelf life based upon the matching process.   
     
     
         2 . A Shelf life Prediction System including a bone conductor based speaker having a sound frequency range of at least 1 hz and at most 20K hz; A bone conductor sensor based microphone having a sound frequency range of at least 1 hz and at most 20K hz, for predicting the ready for harvest condition of fruits and vegetables, the steps comprising:
 Generating an acoustic vibration profile of said fruit/vegetable; Resizing and cropping the audio to the area of interest; comparing the data with the combination of acoustic vibrations-based shelf life, defect and maturity matrices; finding the match between the acoustic vibration space and the acoustic vibration space from the shelf life, defect and maturity matrices, predicting the remaining shelf life based upon the matching process.   
     
     
         3 . A prediction method of  claim 1 , further configured to integrate into permanently affixed refrigerated/non-refrigerated drawers and/or cabinets. 
     
     
         4 . A method of  claim 2 , further configured to integrate into robotic arm, equipped with handgrip mechanism to allow for automated harvesting and pruning. 
     
     
         5 . A Detection System including a piezo electric based speaker having a sound frequency range of at least 1 hz and at most 20K hz; A piezo electric sensor based microphone having a sound frequency range of at least 1 hz and at most 20K hz, for using acoustic vibrations for detecting diseases in plants:
 Generating an acoustic vibration profile of said plant; Resizing and cropping the audio to the area of interest; comparing the data with the combination of acoustic vibrations based based diseases, defect and maturity matrices; finding the match between the acoustic vibration space and the acoustic vibration space from the diseases, defect and maturity matrices, detecting the disease based upon the matching process.   
     
     
         6 . A method of  claim 5 , further configured to integrate into robotic arm, equipped with handgrip mechanism to allow for automated disease detection.